Eweek's Mark Hachman reports that in coming few months we will be able to have DVD Burners which will burn at a speed of 16X and will theoretically run at the same speed as 52X CDROM. Now this is exciting. At the moment I think twice before I burn down a DVD, but if I can burn the same DVD in under 6 minutes, that would be super cool and I will gain a bit of efficiency as well. Now just waiting for new DVD Burners and waiting till they get cheap, very cheap. I am still waiting for Dual Layer DVD ......

Got to link to this one, just heard about VS.NET 2005 Express products which are still in Beta. A simple explanation fo this product is “ The Express products, expanding the Visual Studio product line to include lightweight, easy-to-use, easy-to-learn tools for hobbyists, enthusiasts, and novices who want to build dynamic Windows applications and Web sites.” Now this is awesome I think, I don't know how much this will support, but atleast for the people who cannot afford to buy the whole ......

Tariq links me to Thimal's blog who created a script to get Gmail email in RSS feed, looks like my dream is coming true, I will be using it soon as soon as I get some time off this evening. Good work. Thimal, why does it need a web server? There is also a link to Gmail backup Script on this blog, but here it is http://ilia.ws/archives/15_... Tejas Patel ......

Robert tells us about the new design of Channel 9. Well I like this better than the older version, looks more effective too. What I did'nt liked is that the names of the people get broken if they are too long. Why do we need to see the pictures of members who are online on the main page, if I am interested in any person, I will go to his profile to check the detailed version of his profile. If I was involved in the design process, I would bring the bar which says “Online Now” to the bottom ......

The Register reports anything but IE as Internet browser. Well that's good that some vulnerebilities are found and I am hoping that they will be fixed soon, but it is not that easy to ditch IE for that matter. Here are my reasons:- I don't mind using other Internet browsers and if I had to switch over to some other browser at this stage, I will switch over to Opera. The problem lies in the fact that most developers design their website keeping IE in mind the sites don't render in the way they were ......

Purpose: The purpose of this experiment is to demonstrate the ability to track a cell phone's location electronically. Cell phones are being used all the time now by people of all ages and almost all average income American carries around a cell phone with them at all times. We even occasionally hear them ringing at theaters and in classrooms. Cell phones are two way radio transmitters that work by connecting to a nearby tower and exchanging data. Despite the FCC's limitation on maximum power output ......

Well Orkut is not as secure I thought it would be or should be at this stage. I just found out that with the pictures that we put up on Orkut, if somebody wanted to put those pictures out to the public on the Internet, they could easily do it just by copying the link of that image, like this one & this one (Yes,she is beautiful). Now this is not exceptable in my view. Those pictures should be secure as all other information is or is supposed to be. Also, Orkut should be giving users the options ......

I live in Melbourne, Australia which comes under Victoria state in Australia. Just read the news that Employers may need permission now to spy on their employees and to start monitoring their email and network traffic. More info here.

Reported on SlashDot that school teaching “Certified Ethical Hacking” courses to school/University students for a fees for $US 4000. I think that this is a very good move and more and more Universities and schools should be including this kind of courses as a part of their curriculum. There are still very few Universities in Australia that are teaching students lessons on Security and how to secure their computer and Network. The main thing is Universities along with “how to secure..” ......

Yes, surveys that most of us might have filled at some time in our life time in some form, may be on the Internet or offline. Most of the time surveys come down to statistics that companies might want to know or show to their customers. I had heard a saying about Surveys a long time back and read it again today on Jeff Durham's article on Cert Cities "statistics don't lie, but statisticians do". From my personal experiences and my experiences that I have heard over the period of time, I know that ......

Steve Rubel linked to me a new tool called Amplify. Well I have this habbit of spending my precious 5-10 minutes after a tool and see if it interests me. Obviously this looks like a collaboration tool to me. Did not like the tool, it's bulky toolbar and the way in which 'Amps' look. Here is one example and here is another. I just see as sharing the Amps as a major problem. I have'nt registered (no wonder why) but for each and every new Amp, I have to create a new link and keep on sending that to ......

This has been a nightmare thought for me for a while now. I don't know what new might come up tomorrow, but I am worried about viruses/worms that might enter our systems through RSS feeds or news aggregators. Technical guys and security experts, is this possible? I am sure anything is possible but how, in what format and when will this start happening. Is it any better if Antivirus companies start integrating their product with News aggregators or vice versa. I for sure will look forward to much ......

OK, this is one of the many in one post. My friend Hitesh posted an invitation in Orkut Gujarati community for an invitation to Gmail and quite a few people replied and thus started an conversation on what Gmail is and few other things. 1) My friends at Orkut say that Gmail is making Fuss here is what I say:-”Google is not creating a big fuss about it, but actually people who are using it and loving and hating it are creating a big fuss. Also, people who don't have Gmail are creating a big ......

I read a lot of rumours these last couple of days that Hotmail is blocking Gmail invites, no this is not true by any means. True that sometime the email send from Gmail account land up in SPAM folder, but ooh, that's not counted as Hotmail's fault! I have myself tried it many times and invited few people on their hotmail account and it works like a charm for them. Oh yes, I am a bit upset becuase when my wife sent me three email from her Gmail account, it was sending it to the SPAM folder, until ......

I have stopped subscribing to newsletters now as I read and can get most of the contents in the newsletter in some shape or form on blogs now a days. I have seen that if there is something interesting in any newsletter, than people will blog about it, so I do get updated with what's happening with a company. I want to get Microsoft Newsletter into my Aggregaotor now instead of my inbox, as I am still subscribed to a few of them to be the first one to blog something interesting in them ( I think I ......

I don't use Kazaa or any P2P program for downloading mp3's, I just hate the whole experience even though I am on a broad band connection.And again the problem is I am mostly after Indian songs at a good bitrate and sometimes find it difficult to find at Kazaa and my friends cannot find it too. I was thinking about trying to find some mp3's on Google and Yahoo search and found the string to find mp3 songs on Google and Yahoo. Just punch in "intitle:index.of” mp3 Instrumental ("intitle:index.of” ......

I had some problems using Gmail the other day, reported the bug, but never got an answer as to why that happened, I looked on the Internet and found an interesting forum that is pretty active as far as Gmail is concerned and they are discussing about some of the similar problems and other interesting stuff that I wanted to know about. The forum can be accessed at http://www.emailaddresses.c... Tejas Patel ......

I am more angry than offended. Why can'nt designers learn to respect other people's culture and religion. According to one news on MSN India, Roberta Cavalli's swim designer was having the pictures of God's and Goddesses worhsipped in India. Well Roberta got the attention his product needed, but he has definately lost his credit in front of millions of religious people and made them angry. Why did'nt he try to protray the pictures of leaders of his country and their wives? Link via Nitin. Tejas Patel ......

I wanted this tool. I loved 'Pop Goes Gmail' tool, although I don't want to set it up on my outlook in office but I will still like to get the notification when I receive email from one of my friends. The tool is called GTray and it gives you notification whenever you get email in Gmail account and when clicked also logs you onto Gmail account, now this is easy. Nice work done Author of this tool. Few of my requests:- Is it possible to intigrate into Trillian? Is it possible that we configure it ......

Just had my eyes on this article on “Why Microsoft Should Get Out of DRM” on BoingBoing. Below are the topics covered: 1. That DRM systems don't work2. That DRM systems are bad for society3. That DRM systems are bad for business4. That DRM systems are bad for artists5. That DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT This is a good write up not only for Microsoft Research guys, but also for people interested into DRM and it's uses. The transcript can be found from http://craphound.com/msftdr... ......

Prateek, my Orkut friend posted on a message on Orkut forum saying that now Rediff is offering 1 GB email accounts as well. Now Rediff is offering email services for a long time as my knowledge goes and their systems should be tested well and not like Aventuremail fiasco. Guess, I am not email space greedy now, had enough of it, now I am after better features in free email services, better options and good service. Hotmail is still not moving? Are they going to drop a bomb shell by coming with a ......

Chris Pratley is asking for user feedbacks on how people using Microsoft OneNote. I had my say there. I love using Microsoft OneNote, but at the same time, I will like to add that since I started using Contentsaver and Onfolio, my usage has dropped compared to what it was before but I love the new feature of taking clips while on desktop and then one can edit those pictures or resize them. I have used that function extensively in my last project that I did. Tejas Patel ......

I watch a program called Sunrise in the morning time on Channel 7 as I get ready for my office. I heard Mel and David Koch talk about a program called True Love waits and the goals of this program are as follows:- Make informed, responsible decisions unite, speak out and stand together in taking pride in their virginity/secondary virginity be made aware of the good, positive reasons to wait until marriage live, experience and find true love in their lives be given tools to combat the immense pressure ......

I allready had few nightmares regarding this, so I am not shocked when I heard that now there are viruses for mobile phones too. Can be good for some anti-virus software company who starts selling anti-virus solutions for mobile phones first. If the virus penetrates into mobile, 'Caribe' will be see on the screen. Scary eye! More info on the virus can be found from this link. I envision of viruses that might start auto dialing numbers on mobile phones and just think what will happen when these nos. ......

William Luu links to the Geoblogs site, where I can see people who have recently blogged in real time. The percentage of weblogs that are geocoded still seems to be very less, but yes it is working. As per the person behind this project, it can take upto 3 minutes after a blog is updated to appear on Geoblogs. On the same graph, I can see that it is still night where I am from in India. I enjoyed watching this and found two interesting blogs, which did not exist for me otherwise. Tejas Patel ......

I love reading Kevin's Blog and there is another post of his that I thought was a must to read for technical as well as for marketing people or those pretending to be marketing gurus. I learned something new today after reading the post which I will remember for the rest of my life. A must read, but lines that stuck me “Marketing is a discipline. It takes creativity, patience, intelligence, empathy, quantitative analysis, and lots of hard work. That's what makes it difficult. I think it's only ......

Just logged into my Yahoo account to see 100 MB space alloted to my account and it sayed that “I am a Loyal user” which I am not, my wife is more loyal to me and she still has'nt got 100 MB, I know they must still be rolling it out and it must be depending on servers too I think. Well some more space to utilise now! Is it getting hard for Email service providers who used to charge for 10 MB of space? Ofcourse they had POP3 and may be webmail service, but so what I can check my 1 GB email ......

I am late to the party here, but looks like I will be using more stable versions than others did. Now as I have started using more of my Gmail account, I wanted a tool that will fetch the email into by Outlook rather than visiting everyday manually. I had heard of a tool “Pop Goes the Gmail” when I did not have a Gmail account, I finally found the tool, installed it and can now check the Gmail account from my desktop without opening “Internet Explorer” as I don't use other ......

Wonderbug, I am moved. I agree with what you say. “Rape is one of the most agonizing and harrowing of experiences that a woman can go through. The most excruciating part is that often women DO NOT SAY NO, for the perpetrator may be their own boyfriend, husband, friend or relative, and they are ‘expected’ to give in to his demand and keep silent about it. And if they have been raped even after saying ‘no’, they do not report it for they fear the backlash that will follow, ......

Whuuhh, my thoughts about Gmail account were right. Through out my day I had mixed reviews. Few of my friends to whom I forwarded the news that I have Gmail account to auction came back to me, some bidding money and while some offering me slabs of beer knowing that I am a non-alcoholic. Now the truth part, this Gmail auction thing was just a trial thing which I wanted to do and see what the responses were like. Although I was not going to take money from anybody, I wanted to see what public reactions ......

I have never taken any interests in auctions before nor I have been to many auctions. I think this time I have something to sell. I have an Gmail invitation to give out and I want to make some quick dollars out of it and I want to test that whether Gmail is that famous that people are ready to pay money for it or they are just interested in free invitations! Considering that people do pay for email accounts that have 25-50 MB space. The starting bid is $55 AUD. (Australian). Payments can be done ......

From the figures I see that this is my 200th Post today on this weblog. Let me say that this is just a beginning for me and not a great milestone. I will like to thank and I am grateful to all my readers, my online friends, friends in my IM list, my blogger friends, friends from Orkut, my wife Komal (she is the main one, as she allows me to sit in front of computers for hours without complaining, ah just a little bit) and to all others who have helped me to keep myself motivated to the task of blogging ......

I do get SPAM mail about the online degree and post graduate courses and they go straight even out of the deleted box. I read an article on BBC News online about a UK E-learning Unversity, where becuase they could not attract more students and only ended up with 900 students now the program is in problems. It reports that their expenses stand at 44000 pounds per student!!! That's a massive failure. Tejas Patel ......

Gmail crush is amazing. People are finding better ways to do the barter for an Gmail accout, I found a website called Gmail Swap through http://www.de-leau.com/ who linked to me before few days. I saw people swaping for bottles of liquor, australian boomerangs and even 10% of at a laundry!!. Amazing. Update:- There are few distributed here http://office.weblogsinc.co... which one can get after doing some hard work!! Tejas Patel ......

Email is supposed to be a service that has to be reliable, timely, accurate, and easy to use. When in problems, it is good to provide some advance notice and if it is in “BETA” they SHOULD write in Beta. Aventuremail , didn't start using it seriously, but the amount of problems members are facing just getting things working on their system is amazing. Looks like lack of strategy and planning. Every now and then they have all funny error messages which too are not consistent. I have a ......

Got an email today from press@offliner.com about one of their products called Adscleaner, have'nt yet checked it, but this is what I got in the email.”AdsCleaner - an effective ad killer and pop up blocker, gains more and morepopularity. In its last version this dynamically developing ad killer and pop upblocker has been extended by bookmark manager, that has made AdsCleaner one ofthe most universal and effective tools for work in the Internet. After all,AdsCleaner blends together all the functionality ......

Brian posts on “Begging for Gmail accounts “. Yes he is right, people are begging for Gmail account or Orkut invite. I remember I requested an account (not begged) a few weeks ago and got gmail account from a kind person. While I reject all most all the request, I will like to take time and put my reasons for rejecting those requests. Quite a few people search on Google with the term “Orkut invite” and land up on my blog on this post.Some of them even contact me using the ......

I might be making lot of mistakes while I am blogging, found through Steve Rubel , a tool that gets installed as IE tool and check the spelling and shows the suggestions. The tool is called ieSpell which can be downloaded freely from the website for personal use. This might be handy from time to time when I don't use my Outlook or Word to type the things in and also I use OneNote now a days, which as inbuilt spell checker too. What I need now is a tool which has spell checker as well as points out ......

Another comparision chart on RSS readers. Looks like they are missing RSSBandit ( I could not find it in the list). William just showed me that RSSBandit can even feed the comments. At the moment, if I need to get back to any of my previous post that I commented on or any post that I want to follow up, I put a flag against it in my Newsgator and it looks to be working OK for me, but this feature of RSSbandit will help me from time to time. Tejas Patel ......

Ebooks sales are increasing at a good speed. People have started to use ebooks and read or study from there and save them few dollars while saving a lot of forests. I am sure with the improving Clear Type Font technology, reading ebooks will be much more pleasant in the future. According to one report, the sales of ebooks have increased by 46% this year compared to the same time last year. I too read quite a lot of ebooks for reference purposes. Tejas Patel ......

The news that Microsoft is offering free licenses for 'backup servers' is all over the Internet today. Yes, very good offer. I welcome it and I am sure thousands of other customers are welcoming it as well. But I wonder that what triggered this offer? Is this the result of the competition that Microsoft might be facing in the market today? If you have'nt read this news yet, find it at Yahoo News. Tejas Patel ......

I enjoyed Friday's evening with wife and one more couple. I went to watch Hum Tum . An excellent direction, I liked the story line and enjoyed the movie. Quite a good family entertainer. It even had subtitles in English for non hindi speakers. I was amazed to see how many non Indians were there to see the movie and they laughed and enjoyed the movie too. Well ofcourse, like other hindi movies, this is a story about a girl and a guy, dancing around in the garden and in public places, but it's fun. ......

I have missed this news before. I did not knew that Microsoft was working on a newsbot like Google. I was searching for something when I came across the link to MSN newsbot website http://uk.newsbot.msn.com/ and apparently it has this for many different countries , for example for India, the link is http://in.newsbot.msn.com/. I like the site layout and I am kind of tired looking at the boring look of Google News, Seems to be capturing most of the news similar to Google. I like the option where we ......

I am not a developer but still I am working on a project which requires me to create a website using IIS 6.0 and SQL Server 2000 and using ASP.NET and some ASP coding too. My project was working fine till yesterday afternoon, but when I was trying to access asp pages, it started giving me messages "The requested resource is in use". I tried and tried troubelshooting it, I restarted IIS, rebooted the computer, reinstalled ASP, reinstalled IIS (ofcourse I backed up my IIS settings before ), but all ......

Boot time security is getting essential, I can imagine soon there might be viruses specially created that will attack the system while it is booting and thus bypass quite a few hurdles in it's way. There are quite a few steps that can be taken to save the computer from attacks while it is booting and policies are not yet implemented on computer. Roberta Bragg writes an article on “Boot Time Security”. Tejas Patel ......

OK, finally got my 2 GB email at www.aventuremail.com . Here are my experiences:- Registration is quite simple Non painfull process Extremely fast compared to some other webmail Preferences and Options-w0w get to do so many things here Address book can be imported and exported - I really like this feature I can add many aliases Has Calender features Has search functions 2 GB space MY BAD EXPERIENCES:- Cannot get any email!!!They have a lot of testing to do I think, I can send email OK, I hit send ......

I had an encounter with TypeKey today. I could see this type of service coming and here it is. I went to Anil Dash's blog today to put an comment and there I was Told Off that I could not comment on this blog as I had to login using TypeKey ID!! Now I was put off by this. Although I registered on the service just to get a feel of it, I did'nt feel like using this service. I can see the benefits of this service and how it can help but only when many many bloggers integrate this service in there blog ......

Peter Caputa likes to follow a policy of “Link to me and i will link to you”. Peter you owe me a big time now, I have linked to you twice today and actually making three links (kidding). The topic of blog linking has been covered many many times before from all the different aspects, talking from social aspects to technical aspects to traffic on your blogs issues. Recently MY DEAR FRIEND Robert Scoble wrote me something more on linking (notice the capital letters, it is a part of socialising ......

Peter links me to new Yahoo Toolbar which is still in beta, and it has the capability of searching and destroying the spyware programs, Yahoo should provide a bit more documentation on the toolbar which is till in beta, so people get motivated about using their beta tool. For Peter :- it is very sad that I cannot comment on your blog as my IP comes under some SPAM list, although congratulations on having more and more subscribed readers. Tejas Patel ......

Are u still waiting for your Gmail invite, don't worry then, now there is a service that offers 2 GB email service which is available to public too says publisher of Paidcontent.org blog. The website url is http://www.aventuremail.com but it's undergoing some surgery at the moment due to heavy traffic and should be back in 24 hours time. Will have to check it tommorrow. And my readers should rush too, incase they want to register a very specific username which might still be available. Tejas Patel ......

I see many bloggers (from the ones that I read) advertising on their blogs now and some of them tell me that they make good enough money to pay for their web hosting and few don't or find it difficult. When it comes to advertising on blogs people have different opinion here of whether to have ads. on blogs or not. Mostly the people who don't have their own weblog site say that ads. on blog dillutes the relation that they share with their readers while the users who have their own websites for blogging ......

There are many books written on Google hacks so far, many showing us how to use and optimise the use of Google, but incase if you have missed the train or did'nt that money was worth spending on learning some cheap tricks, here is the link by Johhny Long who writes on ways of extracting information from Google and getting most of our time. On his website Johhny also has a interesting section called Google Dork -meaning 'An inept or foolish person as revealed by Google.' The second feature of this ......

Read about a XP reduction tool which can also do the service pack slip streaming and a bunch of other features. With this tool you can minimise the options that are installed when Windows XP is installed by removing the required files from the image that is created. This is a tool created in C# and more information on this tool can be found from here and the tool can be downloaded from http://www.msfn.org/comment... . I will have to give this tool a try later ......